Noname Studio was born in Milano years ago, inside the architecture studio where we met and worked until 2013. Since then our practice has grown and developed over time, through private assignments, competitions and collaborations with colleagues. Our work focuses mainly on research and interpretation of the different forms of contemporary living, addressed both on architectural scale, interior design and furnishing details.
For us being architects means returning the aspirations and memories of our clients in expressiveness and aesthetics, reconciling their desires with our visions and our design method.
The need to dialogue with different cultures is what makes our daily practice more complex and stimulating. We are constantly searching for a balance between the legacy of the past, the multicultural contaminations, the challenges addressed by the contemporaneity and the continuous refinement of our expressive identity.
Each of the projects we face is based on the idea that knowledge is a route that draws on the past to transform the future.
Currently our research focuses on finding new interpretations of those spaces that respond to the new needs of contemporary living, overcoming the limit, be it perimeter, cultural, psychological, sentimental or corporeal. Our practice is also accompanied by didactic activities, considered as moments of reflection and comparison: these occasions have allowed us to collaborate with universities in Italy and abroad.
If seen as a whole, our design method can be read as a continuous process of critical analysis open to dialogue, which leads us most of the time to unexpected results.
Many years ago during an exchange program abroad I met a Turkish guy, originally from Ankara; before we say goodbye, unfortunately I don't remember his name, he gave me a 50 Turkish Lira coin, which still today I keep in my wallet. Looking back on it, I always find it strange how those 50 Lire have become, for work and personal reasons, also a symbol of my lasting bond with Turkey.
I have always been predisposed to contamination, to cultural exchange, to plurality of thought, attitudes that distinguish my way of being and my approach to design. Since that passage of imaginary exchange, which I like to think was triggered by the 50 Lire on the palm of my hand, I have always worked and lived between two nations, treasuring the differences in traditions and culture that have enriched me, training my taste and critical thinking.
After graduating from the Politecnico di Milano, my professional career is built first with short work experiences in small companies in Brianza, then in a renowned studio in Milan where, with increasing responsibilities, I was able to personally deal with medium and big scale project.
Noname Studio was born right between those walls.
While the days in the studio passed slowly, the nights were busy working on competitions and other small assignments: at the time my and my colleagues' goal was to emancipate ourselves and create, sooner or later, a studio in which to put our visions and measure our abilities.
With the first residential project carried out in Milan and the increasingly frequent work trips to Istanbul, leaving the studio was at one point an obligatory choice. Traveling, in fact, is the constant that has always accompanied my professional activity: a necessity, but also a pretext, an alternative way to know and deepen.
“For me, perfection in architecture - claims the French philosopher F. Baudrillard - is that which, starting from its dimensions, removes all traces of itself and where space represents thought itself.”
Andrea Perego
“Keep walking ... the road is the way”
When I look back now, being in a place and point that one never expected, arouses both a smile and admiration for the power of on-going life. In my opinion it is important, while waiting at the intermediate stops, to allow the knowledge and experiences gained at previous stops to shed light on what will happen at the future stops. Knowing the past, understanding our lifetimes, it is necessary to gain the ability to develop scenarios for the future.
Understanding the changing conditions and revising one’s position is possible by accepting that life is in a constant state of change. This colorfulness in motion, which manifests in every aspect of life, becomes more alive with social and cultural interactions.
In my professional life, my factor of motivation is that, in the continuity of this social and cultural change of climate, I have the opportunity to make a statement within architecture in the contemporary era based on my knowledge and my own thoughts. Each piece of work produced is an architectural reflection of one's world of thought and worldview.
While studying at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2006, I visited Milan with friends as the first stop of our Interrail tour. At the time, I did not know that in the following years this northern Italian city, which is in a leading position in Europe regarding the field of art and architecture, would be my home for many years. After returning to Istanbul, I had the opportunity to work in the Metrik Architecture Office before I graduated, and I had the possibility to take part in projects with various scales and in various stages, from the preparation of first drafts, to the implementation of projects, which led also to experience in project management. I completed my master's degree in Urban Design at Domus Academy in 2008. In this period, I had the chance to work professionally, and at the same time I had the opportunity to exchange information and culture with many different people from different countries, with whom I am still in contact. After I graduated, I started working in Studio Barreca e La Varra – one of the most influential offices in Milan. During my work in this office for seven years, I collaborated in a team focused on international projects, and which participates in various international competitions.
We decided to found Noname Studio when with my colleagues I realized that undertaking an independent professional path would be the way.
Görkem Güvenç
Photography: Jessica Soffiati